Excellent blog entry which is well worth a careful read:
http://teslaowner.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/supercharger-time-test/
(apologies if this has been covered previously)
If I understand this correctly, whichever battery pack type you own (A or B) you will only charge at a given Supercharger's maximum rate if you turn up with less than 40% SOC in the pack.
From zero to 40%, the pack MAY be charged at the Superchargers maximum rate but this will depend on temperature, other cars recharging at the same time etc.
Once above 40%, all Superchargers start to throttle back, which is why the table in the link shows a range of 43 kWh added in 30 mins from an SC running at 113kW, but only 37 kWh in 30mins from another running at 121kW.
Given that typical Supercharger use requires a final charge level above 40% (and is highly unlikely to start from empty), the time advantage given by a B pack as opposed to an A is less than you think:
A quote (attributed to Tesla): “For a customer charging from 20% to 90% (more than enough to go to the next supercharger station), the difference in charging time between an early car and a current car is less than 4 minutes!”
So I think the rationale for 120kW is to fill more cars in parallel in a reasonable time frame rather than individual cars significantly faster than others.
Unless B-pack owners would like to list all the things they can manage to do in four minutes :biggrin:
ETA: At least one person has found that Supercharger etiquette (or lack) has a FAR greater impact on overall delays: http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...e-Supercharger?p=621109&viewfull=1#post621109
http://teslaowner.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/supercharger-time-test/
(apologies if this has been covered previously)
If I understand this correctly, whichever battery pack type you own (A or B) you will only charge at a given Supercharger's maximum rate if you turn up with less than 40% SOC in the pack.
From zero to 40%, the pack MAY be charged at the Superchargers maximum rate but this will depend on temperature, other cars recharging at the same time etc.
Once above 40%, all Superchargers start to throttle back, which is why the table in the link shows a range of 43 kWh added in 30 mins from an SC running at 113kW, but only 37 kWh in 30mins from another running at 121kW.
Given that typical Supercharger use requires a final charge level above 40% (and is highly unlikely to start from empty), the time advantage given by a B pack as opposed to an A is less than you think:
A quote (attributed to Tesla): “For a customer charging from 20% to 90% (more than enough to go to the next supercharger station), the difference in charging time between an early car and a current car is less than 4 minutes!”
So I think the rationale for 120kW is to fill more cars in parallel in a reasonable time frame rather than individual cars significantly faster than others.
Unless B-pack owners would like to list all the things they can manage to do in four minutes :biggrin:
ETA: At least one person has found that Supercharger etiquette (or lack) has a FAR greater impact on overall delays: http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...e-Supercharger?p=621109&viewfull=1#post621109
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